Paying Bills Wizard

The Paying Bills wizard is used to accept payments for a user’s current bills. You can apply payments for each individual bill or for the total amount owed, beginning with the oldest bill first.

To pay bills

Click the Paying Bills wizard.

Do one of the following.

•

If the User Search Helper is set in properties to display as the first step of the wizard, search for the user. The helper will automatically fill in the User ID box with the ID you select using this helper.

•

In the User ID box, scan the user ID.

•

Type the user ID in the User ID box, and click Get User Information.

•

If the Current button is available, click the button to select the last user record that was displayed, modified, or added.

Information about the user and bill(s) displays. Under Total Bills and Payments, the total number of bills and total amount owed displays. Under Individual Bills and Payments, each bill displays on a separate line. Click glossary links for more information about the bills.

Note: If the Deletion of Items with Bills feature is enabled and an item associated with a bill has been deleted from the catalog, the item ID field and all other item-specific entries for that item will be blank.

While the display of the Tax and Note columns are configurable, the Tax and Note fields and anything they may contain always display in bill glossaries, regardless of how you have set these properties. For more information on Tax and Note column configurations, see the Paying Bills Wizard Properties.

If you select an item or group of items in the bills list and right-click, a circulation menu opens. From this menu, you can perform a variety of circulation tasks. See Right-click Menus.

Do one of the following set of steps, depending on whether you are applying a payment to the total amount owed, or to an individual bill.

•

If you are applying payment to the total amount owed, do the following.

–

Under Total Bills and Payments, type the payment amount in the Payment box (for example, 1.75, $1.75, .50, or $.50).

–

In the Payment Type list, select the payment type.

–

Click Pay Bills.

–

If you are making a payment using BLUEcloud Commerce via a mag stripe reader, a dialog displays containing the subtotal and the following message:

Waiting for card swipe...

Swipe the card. If the card swipe is successful, this dialog disappears and the payment completes.

Payment information displays in the Payment column. When the payment is applied to the total bill, bills are paid in chronological order, from the oldest bill to the most recent.

Note: Payments on an individual bill only apply to that particular bill. For example, if one bill is overpaid and another is underpaid, WorkFlows does not apply the amount of change left over from the first bill to the deficit of the second bill; the user receives change for the bill that was overpaid but still owes for the underpaid bill.

WorkFlows cannot produce change for bills paid using a BLUEcloud Commerce-enabled Payment Type policy. If you attempt to pay a group of bills and one of the bills is overpaid using BLUEcloud Commerce, an error occurs and the bills are not paid.

•

If you are applying payments to an individual bill, do the following.

–

Under Individual Bills and Payment, select the bill to be paid.

–

Click the Payment Type field on the selected bill, then select the payment type.

–

Select the Payment field, and type the payment amount (for example, 5.00).

–

Click Pay Bills.

–

If you are making a payment using BLUEcloud Commerce via a card reader device, a dialog displays containing the subtotal and the following message:

Waiting for card swipe...

Swipe the card. If the card swipe is successful, this dialog disappears and the payment completes.

Payment information displays in the Payment column.

After making a payment, click one of the following options.

•

Pay More Bills to continue making additional payments for this user.

•

Make Payments for Another User to accept payments from another user.

•

Close to quit the wizard.

Important Considerations When Using this Wizard

•

If the user is blocked, an alert window will display. If your site uses the User Groups feature and this user’s responsibility level is LINKED, then this user will inherit the delinquency status of the worst-case user in the group. If a user in the same group is delinquent, blocked, or barred an alert window will appear.

•

It may be possible to find a user by a previous user ID, if configured in policies. Go to the FAQs: Searching User Records topic.

•

You can manage the display of the Tax and Note columns under Individual Bills and Payments from the Paying Bills wizard properties using the Show bill tax and Show bill note properties respectively.

•

Click the glossary links to display more detailed information.

While the display of the Tax and Note columns are configurable in the Paying Bills wizard properties, the Tax and Note fields and anything they may contain always display in bill glossaries, regardless of how you have set these properties.

•

When using the Paying Bills wizard, you can pay bills from the patron’s credit account using the CREDITACCT payment type. The payment will be allowed if the patron has funds in the credit account to cover the amount of the bill, the bill reason is listed in the Credit Rule policy as a bill reason that can be paid from credit account, and if the automatic payment defaults are configured in the Paying Bills wizard properties. Click the user glossary (at the top of the wizard window) to see the credit account balance.

•

When using the patron’s credit account to pay multiple bills, if an error occurs (for example, a bill has a bill reason that does not allow payment with a credit account) only bills up to the error will be paid. You can sort the bills by bill reasons and select those that can be paid with credit account. Or, you can pay bills individually after the error occurred.

•

If a bill is overpaid, change will be automatically calculated; the exception to this is when the patron user pays with a credit card for a payment with a BLUEcloud Commerce-enabled Payment Type. WorkFlows cannot produce change for bills paid using a BLUEcloud Commerce-enabled Payment Type policy. If you attempt to pay a group of bills and one of the bills is overpaid using BLUEcloud Commerce, an error occurs and the bills are not paid.

•

Payments on an individual bill only apply to that particular bill. For example, if one bill is overpaid and another is underpaid, WorkFlows does not apply the amount of change left over from the first bill to the deficit of the second bill; the user receives change for the bill that was overpaid but still owes for the underpaid bill.

•

WorkFlows accepts up to 50 payments on a single bill. If you see a message that partial payments are no longer accepted, the bill must be paid in full or forgiven with the next payment.

•

If the patron credit account exists but is closed, a message displays and the bill payment is denied. Pay the bill using a form of payment other than CREDITACCT (credit account).

•

The tax amount calculated from the Amount Billed and added to the Amount Owed is controlled by the Circulation Tax policy specified in the bill's Bill Reason policy. For more information, see Bill Reason Wizard.